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05 March 2008

I really wish I had saved it. Someone somewhere (email? blog?) made a remark about Hillary basing her experience as First Lady as real experience was proof that yes indeed, the secretary can take over her bosses job.

While I know that Hillary was far more than Bill's secretary, I think we can all be in agreement that during their 8 years in the White House, he turned to her for advise or she offered it freely. Each day my husband & I give each other a run down of our day as well as offer advise on how to handle situations. In our world that means discussing how best to write a grant proposal. In Hillary's world it means whether to use gender or sex in a bill.

The dismissal of her years in the White House rings with the same sexist crap that comes out when a Fortune 100 executive gets a divorce and the wife gets a huge settlement. "He earned it!" people cry. Um, no...they earned it. Very often you will find that the stay at home wife worked full-time while the husband labored away at business or medical school. She was the one called when a last minute dinner broke out with clients. And of course all the social events she needed to attend so she could be her husband's arm jewelry. Not rocket science, but must-haves in corporate America for the man to be successful.

In Hillary's case, she was a trusted confidant and I'm sure an advisor. She had a legacy to uphold from Abigail Adams to Eleanor Roosevelt, First Ladies did much more than just pick out china patterns. And anyone who thinks that Michelle Obama won't pipe in when certain topics arise are woefully mistaken. Heck there was talk for a bit that Laura Bush should run for office! Her resume does include talking American women into supporting the invasion of Afghanistan for "the sake of the women under Taliban rule!"

Yes, in some ways I wish we Hillary had a Madeline Albright background, without the being born a non-citizen part, but we don't. Instead we have to choose from a man who does epitomize "global citizen" and a woman who was the best understudy in the world.